Marine Pollution

Marine Pollution

By Dr Arvind Kumar

In view of the growing marine pollution, the environmentalists are calling on European countries to achieve a minimum 50% reduction in marine waste as part of commitments they must make under EU law. EU countries have until July this year to announce measures they will take to cut plastics and other litter under the 4-year-old Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The directive also obliges member states to have monitoring programmes in place by mid-2014 as part of the broader effort to address fish and biodiversity loss. Brussels-based Seas at Risk and seven affiliated European conservation groups are calling on the countries to halve their waste by 2020. In a statement, Seas at Risk called the national action programmes due in July a “litmus test for political ambition” and urged governments to reduce debris by boosting incentives for plastics recycling, requiring ships to dispose all waste before leaving EU ports, and strengthening enforcement of littering laws. According to Chris Carroll, spokesman for Seas At Risk, “The 50% target is ambitious, but certainly from our point of view it is achievable and should be an absolute minimum.”

The UNEP has warned that ocean litter “poses a dire, vast and growing threat to the marine and coastal environment.” It says that plastics, which degrade slowly, are a leading global concern. It identifies merchant shipping, fishing vessels, warships, offshore oil and gas platforms and pleasure craft as leading sea-based sources of refuse, while municipal dumps and discharge from rivers, sewerage systems and rainwater runoff are leading land-bases sources. Human debris has detrimental effects on marine life through release of toxins and ingestion of trash by fish and marine mammals, UNEP says.

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